ESoDoc – European Social Documentary

ESoDoc is designed for media professionals who are eager to elaborate the values of diversity and co-creation in their linear and non-linear communication with people, in the access to their stories and in the development of their project for various formats and platforms. ESoDoc will increase your ability for innovative documentary storytelling, in order to give creative impulses to the evolving market dynamics and to respond to its trends in flexible, collaborative and interdisciplinary ways. Read more

What people say about ESoDoc

Jan-Dirk Bouw (NL) - ESoDoc 2015 alumni

ESoDoc creates fantastic opportunities for dialogue between tutors, documentary filmmakers and the professional industry such as commissioning editors. Both my film plan and myself made huge progress during this workshop. I really appreciated the critical and constructive feedback on the projects from the tutors and my fellow participants, which was always done in a respectful and empathic way. That’s why ESoDoc felt like a close family to me.

Julie Lunde Lillesæter (NO) - ESoDoc 2016 alumni

ESoDoc was an amazing opportunity to develop myself as a filmmaker in the company of wonderful colleagues and trainers. The course makes you rethink your project in the context of new approaches to storytelling, financing and distribution. Best of all is becoming a part of an incredibly supportive and inspiring professional community!

Anne Murat (FR) - ESoDoc 2015 alumni

ESoDoc was mind-opening and life-transforming for me and my project. I had no idea I would go through so much personal and professional changes! ESoDoc helped me face my fears and transcend them, find out “what I really wanted to say” in my project and express “who I am”. It was a challenging, inspiring and therapeutic training. We received not only exceptional tools and practice for our documentary projects development, but also loving kindness, respect and support along the way.

Manu Gerosa (IT) - ESoDoc 2016 alumni

ESoDoc has been an amazing training and life experience; the skill of the trainers and the content of the lectures pushed me to dig deep down into the core of my project as well as explore my motivation as a filmmaker. Moreover, the incredible atmosphere during all the three intense sessions, encouraged the birth of some friendships and collaborations that will last for many years to come.

Agnieszka Pokrywka (PL) - ESoDoc 2015 alumni

Participation in ESoDoc made me realize even stronger that working on a transmedia documentary project is not about the idea in my head but more about how do I communicate it to the world and how do I want to create an impact. This conclusion was backed by wonderful ESoDoc community: organizers, tutors and participants which was enriching as professional and deeply human experience.

Gayatri Parameswaran (IN) - ESoDoc 2016 alumni

The ESoDoc experience gave so many useful inputs for my career and the project. The course, the people and the places were all so inspiring. If given a chance, I would do it again and again!

Jamie Ballieu (UK) - ESoDoc 2008 alumni

ESoDoc gave me a powerful and supportive network of colleagues and friends which have opened up doors beyond what I could consider possible prior to it. The ESoDoc community continues to grow and I am often finding new and inspiring creative partnerships both in it and through it.

Lisa Fingleton (IRL) - ESoDoc 2008 alumni

Since participating in ESoDoc I have worked with hundreds of people through community filmmaking projects and have been able to share the knowledge I gained about filming with integrity in a Human rights context.

Hugh Hartford (UK) - ESoDoc 2006 alumni

ESoDoc was a fantastic way to build working relationships with filmmakers and documentary lovers from all over Europe. 4 years on and I am still in regular contact with former participants and teachers and have worked on many projects that have come through connections made during ESoDoc.

Barbara Orton (UK) - ESoDoc 2007 alumni

ESoDoc was a wonderful place to start making relationships with broadcasters, distributors and fellow producers and directors, all finding ways to tell the best social documentary stories across multi platforms.

Tonje Hessen-Schei (N) - ESoDoc 2011 alumni

This cutting-edge workshop features people on the front-lines of the exciting new developments of the documentary field. The great trainers, networking possibilities, friendships and co-productions that ESoDoc provided has forever changed the course of my work.

Anna Colom (ES) - ESoDoc 2008 alumni

ESoDoc was a unique opportunity to learn from very experienced and well-known professionals in the field as well as to create links with fellow filmmakers from all over Europe. It was truly inspiring and a great opportunity to transform ideas into real projects!'

Carol Cooke (UK) – ESoDoc 2011 alumni

Where else do you get to the meet the "living legends" and leading trailblazers of the documentary world, develop your projects with them, attend their invaluable masterclasses - and all in the company of the ever supportive and ever inspiring ESoDoc Family.

Ilona Bicevska (LV) - ESoDoc 2005 alumni

ESoDoc? Probably the best what happened to me, after I discover my interest in documentary filmmaking. Knowledge, practice, creative spirit and great people. Good way to find out how your ideas suits to market. Lots of re-thinking, questioning, networking and killing stereotypes.

Ariadna Relea (ES) - ESoDoc 2011 alumni

ESoDoc has been a unique experience that allowed me to go further with my documentary project, to share doubts and difficulties of making documentaries with wonderful and talented people, and to learn about new ways of telling stories and financing them.

Peter Snowdon (UK) - ESoDoc 2005 alumni

Lifechanging! And hopefully, not just for me, but for the people and communities I work with, too.

Femke Stroomer (NL) - ESoDoc 2008 alumni

ESoDoc inspired me to start a participatory videoproject with young refugees and immigrants that came to my hometown Utrecht. Filming and screening their impressive stories was emotional and wonderful.

Jakob Weydemann (DE) - ESoDoc 2010 alumni

ESoDoc not only helped me to develop my documentary project further, but opened a whole new world of cross-media possibilities and aspects for documentaries to me, which I will put in use for all my future film projects. Meeting documentary filmmakers from all around Europe and working together was a fantastic experience!

Mirjam Leuze (DE) - ESoDoc 2007 alumni

Changing the world to better by documentaries? I`m still not shure wether this really works - but the people at EsoDoc gave me the inspiration and the boldness to give it a try: That`s one of the reasons why I am doing Participatory Video Workshops with young people and that`s why I am working since four years on my documentary "Flowers of Freedom" - which follows four women and their struggle for freedom and democracy in the vastness of Kyrgyzstan.

Sara Zavarise (IT) - ESoDoc 2008 alumni

It was a great opportunity to get in touch with established documentary filmmakers and producers and to share the experience with emerging filmmakers from all over Europe.

Ma Shumin (F) - ESoDoc 2006 alumni

ESoDoc inspired me to want to be a better filmmaker and a better person during the time I did the program in 2006 and still now five years later

Phil Cox, Native Voice Films (UK) - ESoDoc trainer

I have taught for the last 10 years around the world on many different courses and institutions. ESoDoc is still the only course that truly prepares its participants for the evolving multiskill new media world we all face as filmmakers today.

Neelima Mathur, Formedia (IND) - ESoDoc trainer

Within three workshops, ESoDoc successfully opens the essence of the world of documentary to more than 20 participants year after year - it is an amazing achievement!

Angelo Loy, AMREF (IT) - ESoDoc trainer

ESoDoc is one of those rare occasions where I have been feeling part of a trans cultural community, worried about the responsibility of images and projects in the fight for the endorsement of social values and a better world.

Katerina Cizek, NFB (CAN) - ESoDoc trainer

Where else can you access 3 weeks of world-class lectures as well as one-on-one mentoring with leading professionals in documentary film, NGOs, cross-media? Perhaps most important of all, you join a dedicated and generous peer group of participants who make up the growing ESoDoc family, and that network becomes essential for many productive years to come.

Mick Csáky, Antelope FIlms (UK) - ESoDoc trainer

One of the things that makes ESoDoc so special is the way that highly experienced teachers are brought in to very work closely with each and every student, interrogating their ideas in depth and then helping to them to create strong documentary films, television programmes and internet productions of distinction.

Mike Dicks, Bleedinedge/PACT (UK) - ESoDoc trainer

ESoDoc always has a great mix of talented delegates, trainers and projects – it’s such a pleasure to share knowledge and creative development with everyone involved on the course.

Sabine Bubeck-Paaz, ZDF/Arté (DE) - ESoDoc trainer

The ESoDoc projects might be diverse, from personal to investigative, from creative documentaries to crossmedia projects - but they are all driven by the filmmaker's wish to take social responsibility.

Featured projects

The Next Guardian

The contrasting dreams of two generations clash within the microcosm of an ancient Buddhist monastery in Bhutan, when Gyembo an ordinary teenager is chosen as the next guardian of their family monastery by his father.